Discerning Truth & Error

1 John 4:1–6 NASB95

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from 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 from God; and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world. You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

INTRO: How many of you have done a Google search recently? I am amazed at all the information that is available on the internet, aren’t you?

Thinking about this, I did a search for “gospel” the other day and google returned 727 million results in half a second. Y’all, I’m not real sure I can even count that high. But truly, we live in a time where we have more access to more data than we can fathom.

I bring that up because even as we have all this information readily available, our world appears increasingly more broken. People are polarized politically, morally, and ethically in spite of all the data and technology. As Christians, we have a responsibility to lead people in truth because God has called us NOW to be ambassadors in His Kingdom.

We are to be salt and light, not simply as an identity marker, but as agents of change.

ILL: When you add salt to a dish, it changes the taste. Some of you have learned that a little salt on your watermelon brings out its sweetness. Similarly, when light is applied to the dark landscape, eerie shadows yield to the beauty of God’s creation.

Our time today will focus on how we can discern truth so that we can lead others out of the darkness and into the light.

To help set the context for our study, let me remind you that this letter emphasizes the necessity for the Christian life to be authentic. We who profess to be Christians must really be surrendered to the lordship of Jesus Christ; we must really have faith in the finished work of Christ and this will be evident in our lives.

Over the last couple weeks, we’ve looked at the Christian pursuit of holiness and noted that if we are truly Christian, we will have the Spirit of Christ in us which keeps us from living in perpetual sin and it enables us to love one another. In the previous chapter, John wrote:

1 John 3:24 NASB95

The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.

So before we can really jump into this passage, we must acknowledge what we cannot see; There is a spiritual reality that evades our limited senses. This is a bit uncomfortable sometimes because we don’t like to talk about things like this.

We are limited to 5 senses. Do you know them?

Sight, Sound, Smell, Taste, and Touch.

But what about the blind person? Do you believe that just because someone cannot see something that it does not exist? What if you have a cold and you cannot smell or taste? Would you then assert that all food is the same? Of course not.

Our limitations mean that the spiritual realm is not one that we can see, hear, smell, taste, or touch. But there is a spiritual realm. And in this spiritual realm, there are spirits that are from God and there are spirits that have rebelled against God or evil spirits.

Christians are called upon to discern the truth and to lead others in it. If you are a Christian, then you truly need to take note of God’s Word for you today. If you have not yet committed your life to Christ, I pray that in our time, you will begin to see the truth of the Gospel so that you may be transformed.

The message this morning is “Discerning Truth & Error”. As always, there is a sermon guide in your bulletin for you.

The first act in discerning truth is to:

Face the Facts (1)

(READ)

This is a warning.... and really good advice - Do not believe everything you hear! There are lies and untruths everywhere you turn.

ILL: Now, some of you have learned this lesson in the world. Not every truth claim is actually true. Not every Facebook post is true. Not every testimony is true.

And this extends to those who claim to speak on behalf of God. The word spirit here can be understood as a ‘directed prophetic utterance’. Not every prophetic utterance is from God, some utterances are from the enemy.

John says here that “many” false prophets have gone out into the world. In the 1st century church, there were people that would come rolling into the church meetings, claiming to speak truth but in fact were undermining the teaching of the Apostles.

This warning suggests that as Christians, we need to approach these teachings with a healthy level of skepticism.

Just because the teaching sounds good, does not make it true. Just because the speaker sounds sincere does not make the message truth. Just because the message appeals to you or stimulates an emotion within you does not mean that it is a message from God.

You and I need to take just a moment and acknowledge this reality. There are people who will open the Bible and teach, but it may be bad teaching.

With the advent of YouTube and Podcasts, you and I have access to more preaching and teaching than any generation has ever had. And there are some fantastic Bible teachers out there- far better than me and some of them even have cool accents.

BUT there are also a great number of false prophets. These false prophets may call themselves Christian, they may say the name of Jesus, they may use familiar words like forgiveness, faith, spiritual, prayer, blessing, etc. Just because they use our vocabulary does not mean they use our dictionary.

Look here: about 200 years ago, a guy by the name of Joseph Smith claimed that an angel told him that all the religions were wrong and he was given a new bible. This religion uses the name of Jesus, ‘identifies’ as Christian and is leading hundreds of thousands of people astray.

There are men who lead congregations of tens of thousands and preach a message of worldly prosperity. They use the name of Jesus, but reject the Word of God which calls us to turn from sin and love of money.

There are YouTube preachers who declare a Word from God because of some numerical calculation or special insight. They may claim a “new revelation” or prophecy of the end times.

Church, be careful! We must face the fact that there are those who pervert the Word of God. They do not speak for God, but for the Deceiver, Satan.

Next, in order for us to discern truth and error we need to:

Filter Out the Fiction (2-3)

This is where the rubber meets the road. (READ)

It’s important that we recognize John is addressing a specific problem due to a specific group of false teachers that made their way into the city of Ephesus and among the believers there. These false teachers would deny that Jesus had come in the flesh.

You may recall from an earlier message that these particular teachers taught that all spirit is good, flesh is bad and thus what happens in the flesh is natural and not sin. Because of this view, they posited that Jesus did not really become human. In their view, Jesus was pretending to be human and didn’t really die on the cross, therefore did not really rise from the grave.

There’s probably more that could be said, but I hope you get the idea. They were teaching false doctrines.

The Ephesian church needed to test the teaching against what the apostles taught and against the Scriptures they had (OT). John warned that if the teachers denied that Jesus had come in the flesh, then they were obviously false teachers. This specific teaching must be extrapolated to other false teachings.

In order for us to do that, we have to think. That’s right, Christians must be a ‘thinking’ people. But God has not left us unequipped for this. In order to filter out that which is untrue, we must know what is true.

Folks, we must know God’s Word in order to do this. We must invest in our understanding and application of the Bible’s teaching. There are hundreds of false religions and even more false teachings that are cloaked in deception. I want to give you just a single example:

We spent last Sunday learning that we are to “Love One Another.” We talked about what that means, and hopefully you have a good grasp on that. Well, there are false teachings that use our vocabulary and yet are dangerously false teachings.

ILL: Some might say that to love one another means to affirm or accept their lifestyle as normal even if it is destructive or against nature; in this view, love means that you never disagree with their morality, though they can disagree with ours. In their view, God is not the authority. This is false.

God’s Word says that love does not rejoice in sin or injustice. His Word tells us that there is a design for humanity and marriage, a design for the family, a design for community, a call for integrity and value for life. Loving one another means confronting sin, not celebrating it. It means restoring the broken, not oppressing them. It means welcoming the stranger, not shunning them.

Church, if we are going to make disciples of Jesus, that means that we must know that which we are called to teach and model. We can only do that as we get into God’s Word.

That is why every week we GATHER around the Word of God. That is why I implore you to get into a small group so that you can GROW in your understanding of the Bible. That is why I urge you to GO so you can partner together to practice biblical teachings.

As Christians, we must face the facts that there are false teachers and we must filter out the fiction so that we can lead ourselves and others in truth.

Finally, in order to discern truth & error, Christians must:

Follow the Findings (4-6)

(READ)

In these last few verses, we see that we can have confidence that we know the truth. So, let’s follow the findings together:

The truth is that authentic Christians are “from God” because we have the spirit of God indwelling in us. (4)

1 Corinthians 6:19 NASB95

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?

Romans 8:9 NASB95

However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.

And because of this, the victory over the spirit of the antichrist is certain. Folks, we need to understand that GREATER is He that is in you than he that is in the world! We have God’s Word and His Holy Spirit, therefore we ought to be confident as we discern truth & error.

Jesus prayed that you and I who are Christians would be sanctified in the truth of God’s Word (John 17:17). That is, that we would grow in confidence and maturity in truth, not error.

Truth not about what is popular among the people - it’s not a democratic decision- that’s the world’s way! May I remind you that the whole nation of Germany thought that Hitler’s plan was a pretty good idea. It was popular. They received his ideas as ‘truth’.

It’s not about what is ‘inclusive’ or politically correct. Truth is sometimes pretty offensive!

Let me tell you, Jesus has brought forth a Gospel that is exclusive- (John 14:6, Acts 4:12) There is only One way!

That is not popular among Americans today. People will be offended and they will reject what we say and listen to the spirit of error; the spirit of the deceiver. Jesus said,

Luke 13:24 NASB95

“Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.

Church, we have a great responsibility to discern truth and error and lead as many as possible to Christ. We do this because we have followed the findings and await the finale. One day, Jesus will return and the victory that we claim now will be complete. That is the truth. So, as we close this morning,

I challenge you and me with this:

How many people do you know that right now are following the spirit of error? Right now, who do you know that is on their way to Hell? Friends, They need a guide to truth. They need your prayers of intercession. They need your witness.

They need to hear that there is a God in heaven who is perfect and holy. That, because of sin, they are enemies of God and that there is no way that they can earn their way into His kingdom.

Jesus said that we must be born again- we must repent- lay down your sinful ways and believe the Good News, that God so loved you, that He gave His only son to take away your sins and give you eternal life!

You see the empty seats in this sanctuary? You know who they are for? These empty seats are for your neighbors, your friends, your co-workers, your family who do not know the truth! GO to them, lead them to Christ and bring them here so they can be equipped with the true teaching of God’s word.

Church, we must be the leaders of others to truth & error.

[PRAY]

Altar- pray for your lost friends, etc.

Discuss: With the internet sources for preaching and teaching so abundant, how can you be aware of false teachers?

Discuss: What are some ways that you discern truth and error?

Discuss: We are called to the Great Commission; how does our discernment in truth help us make disciples?