Discern or be Deceived

Intro

Throughout out study of first John we have looked at several conflicts. John has shown us the conflict between truth and falsehood in chapter 2:18-28, the conflict between the children of God and the children of Satan in 2:29-3:12, and the conflict between love and hatred in 3:13-24. All of these conflicts play into the larger conflict at display in the book between two spiritual realms, that of dark and that of light.

As children of God, as children of light it incredibly important that we are able to discern if the voices that we allow to speak into our lives are from the realm of light and not the realm of darkness. In our passage today John is going to show us how important it is to test if we are hearing from the Spirit of God or the spirit of the antichrist, and he’s also going to show us how to tell the difference.

So that we will not be pulled off track in our desire to walk in the light.

1 John 4:1–6 NIV

Dear friends, 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. 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, 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. You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.

Behind every statement there is a Spirit. But not every spirit is the Spirit of God. John ended chapter three by saying that the ultimate reassurance of our salvation is that we he have the Holy Spirit living inside of us. Now John is laying out the process by why which we can know if the people we listen to preach, teach, listen to on a podcast, watch their youtube sermons, people who mentor us, friends and family who give you advice. Are speaking to you from the same Holy Spirit that is within you. To do that we have to be intentional about our discernment.

1. Where there isn’t Discernment there Is Deception .

John calls us to test the spirits. We are people of faith but we are not to be people of blind faith to whatever anyone says as long as they use God’s name. We are not called to be naive or gullible, sitting back and blindly believe all who claim to speak for God. We got to follow John’s encouragement here to test those who claim to speak for God not. Not with a cynicism but lovingly.

A biblical definition of discernment is “to separate out, so as to recognize” Thats what John is asking us to do in verses 1&2 1 John 4:1-2

1 John 4:1–2 NIV

Dear friends, 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. 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,

The way we recognize or discern what Spirit is from God and what Spirit is not is by testing them. There was a serious need for discernment in the churches John was writing to because the false teachers he was talking about were not hypothetical. They were there. They were among them. Guess what they aren’t hypothetical for us either.

I pray they aren’t in our building but they are in a place far more dangerous than that. False teachers can reach you anywhere now because we choose to absorb information all day everyday. The call for us as Christians to discern. To test has never been more important. If we don’t discern we will be deceived.

False prophets have gone out into the world. They went forth and they have multiplied. We have to discern every message that we presented with. John gives us two criteria on how to test what spirit the message we receive comes from. which we are going to go over but first I want to give us a couple of ways that we are not to test and discern the spirit that a message is coming to us from.

First we do not test based on someone’s enthusiasm. I don’t know about you guys but I have heard people sound so passionate and enthusiastic about someone that I assumed it had to be true. but passion does not equal truth in what they are talking about.

I have heard the Mason boys be so enthusiastic at Charlotte sports. Man the passion that they have about their terrible teams. John promised me that LaMelo Ball was going to turn around the Hornets this year, and Connor told me to look out for the panthers in the playoff hunt. And they both had so much passion they could have almost convinced me. But halfway through the NBA season the only thing that LaMelo has turned is his ankle. and the only thing to look out for with the Panthers is who they are picking with the 8th pick.

Their passion did not equal truth in what they said. A passionate messenger does not make the content true. Christians need to be able to discern that.

We also do not test by the appearance of the miraculous. The appearance of miraculous powers are no proof in themselves of the truth of those who exercise them. In the Bible we see that magicians in Egypt could imitate some of the miraculous things that God did through Moses. In the New Testament we see Simon the sorcerer amazed people for years with his magic. Not all signs of power are signs from God. but God gives us the ultimate power through the Holy Spirit to help us discern what is from Him and what isn’t so we wont be deceived.

So lets put our lab coats on and see the tests that John tells us we are to do.

2. Weigh the Words.

We don’t test which spirit the message someone speaks into our life is from by how well it is communicated. We test it by the content. Does the message encourage you to worship and obey him or does it lead you into idolatry. Just because you hear someone with great communication skills and their channel, video, or service has good production value doesn’t mean their message is from Spirit. People can be good communicators but be bad preachers because their message content is not true. Your friends can care about you and take you out to coffee and tell you things about yourself and say God told me to tell you this but if its not true its not from the Holy Spirit.

The test we are to use to test if any message we receive is from the Holy is not whether it feels right, but weather it is true.

How do we know what is true? He already covered that in chapter 2 1 John 2:20-23

1 John 2:20–23 NIV

But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.

Now he is reiterating in verses 2 & 3 we evaluate every message that gets delivered to us from the pulpit, to social media, to what our friends say, by what does this say about Jesus. Does it contradict who the Bible says Jesus is. If a message contradicts Jesus who is THE truth than that message cannot be true and not from the Holy Spirit. Because the Spirit of God always gives honor to Jesus the Christ, the Son of God.

We have to test that what we are hearing is actually talking about the real Jesus of scripture and not just slapping the name Jesus on to their own agenda. I can go out and put a Tesla logo on my 2003 Camry but that does’t change what it is. Its not going to start running on electricity, it barely runs on gas. Just because people use the name of Jesus doesn’t mean they are talking about the person of Jesus.

No one gets mad really in our culture if you talk about Jesus as a way. but they do get mad when you start talking about Jesus as the only way. and if the Spirit behind whatever your hearing is pushing subtly that Jesus is one of many ways than what you are hearing is not from the Holy Spirit no matter how the messenger makes you feel.

Thankfully none of this is determined by our feels because they betray us. We know who the real Jesus is because of scripture. If it’s not rooted in scripture it isn’t from the Spirit. Test with scripture not your own feelings.

3. Watch the Walk

1 John 4:4–6 NIV

You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.

Throughout this whole book John given us ways that we can be reassured in our salvation as children of God. He’s told us that children of God love each other, they obey God’s commands, they are confident before God, They follow God’s word not out of duty but out of love, They refuse to continually walk in darkness, they love righteousness, and they have the Holy Spirit dwelling within them.

John has called us to look at all these things when it comes to ourselves so that we know we are truly God’s children. Now John is saying take all that same criteria and apply it to determine if the voice you are listening to is showing those things.

We don’t just test the message but also the messenger. John tells us in verse 5 that false teachers speak from the viewpoint of the world, because they love the world, and they are from the world, so the world listens to them. and those people are popular because the world listens to those who speak its own language.

Their message and their lives will always ultimately be about this world.

False teachers—whether political or religious—preach a gospel that glorifies man, not God. They replace submission to Christ with self-fulfillment, turning the message of salvation into a call for self-improvement. Their focus is on making life more comfortable, not preparing souls for eternity. But a gospel without surrender to Jesus has no power to truly change lives. The Gospel isn’t about us gettin a new coat of paint. It is about us getting a new life.

If someone is sharing a Gospel of self help instead of self surrender if you are paying attention it will show up in their lives. Only God can see hearts it is impossible for us and unnecessary to. We can however hear their message and see their lives, and we find all the evidence we need to know if someone is speaking from the Holy Spirit or the spirit of our enemy.

Conclusion

We test both the message and messenger by the truth of scripture. We do not base our judgements off of feelings we base it off of truth. In our relativistic culture we need constant reminders that some things are always true and some things are always false. Truth is not the present consensus of opinion it is defined by the character of God.

Today we may have more false prophets on our phones than we do face to face but they are just as persuasive and just as lethal as those in the first century. We still have an enemy who still seeks to steal, who still seeks to kill, and who still seeks to destroy.

My reminder for you today as you go through this week is to not accept a watered down message from shallow messengers. Discern so you wont be deceived. We are a people of faith but we are not to put our faith blindly in what anyone says without holding up their message to the light of scripture, and holding up their life to the model of walking in the light in Jesus.

We walk in the light knowing that nothing in this world has the power to pull us out of the light into darkness because as John says in verse four we are from God, and we already overcome any spirit that comes against us because the Spirit of God living inside of us is greater than anything that could ever stand against us.

If you are here today and you have never placed your full faith and trust in Jesus for salvation that can change today. You thought this whole Christianity thing was about self improvement, when in reality it isn’t about being turned from bad to good, it is about being turned from being dead to being alive. Theres nothing you can do to revive yourself. But you can surrender yourself to the God who can, who made it possible for sending his son to die you so that you can go from death to life.

For those of us who have stepped from death to life. I am challenging you this week to look at every voice that you allow to speak into your life. Every pastor, every teacher, every coworker, every family member, every friend, every person you follow. Do what this passage says test them. Do not take people at their word before you compare it to God’s word. Don’t just assume because they are famous, have the same political views as you, you went to school together, can do something you cant explain, or are convincing that they are speaking with the authority of the Holy Spirit.

Discern so you wont be deceived, Because the task we have been given, to take the good news to the world is too important to allow ourselves to be deceived and distracted by messages and messengers who only care about this world. Join me in praying that we would walk in the light while being able to discern when we are trying to be deceived into stepping into darkness.