1 John 4:1-6

Test the Spirits

OPENING REMARKS

English Standard Version Chapter 4

4 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. 4 Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. 5 They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

One of the saddest things in the Christian life is seeing friends depart from the faith. There are so many heartbreaking stories I could share. People who I knew in my youth who were running well, leading Bible studies, speaking at events, telling people about Jesus who have now walked away from Christianity. I’m sure you have stories of your own. It can be really hard to process, can’t it? Especially when it’s someone who perhaps had some level of influence in your walk with Jesus.

What happened to them? How can that happen? Were they really saved in the first place?

What I know for sure is that there’s hope for anyone on this side of eternity. That’s what I hold on to. No matter how hopeless things might look, I can still pray for my friends who have decided to take a walk on the wide road.

One thing that’s crystal clear in every case of every person I know who has walked away from Christianity is that it didn’t happen out of the blue, it happened in increments. They took baby steps in the wrong direction over a period of many months, even years.

In every case a seed of doubt was cast in their minds. First perhaps they began to doubt the relevance of the Bible, then perhaps began to doubt it’s veracity, then they no longer trusted what it had to say, and therefore could not trust in the God that it proclaimed.

But where did these doubts come from? Well, we don’t live in a vacuum do we? The world that we live in isn’t exactly neutral with regards to God.

Romans chapter 1 tells us the unvarnished truth about those outside of relationship with God; they supress the truth about Him in unrighteousness (Rom 1:18), they are haters of God.

Add to this that Jesus warns us in Matthew 7:15 - “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

and again in Matt 24:24 - Matthew 24:24

For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.

So there is a battle afoot for your soul. It’s a spiritual battle which makes it all the more real and dangerous.

The path that led my friends away from Jesus didn’t begin with them believing something directly opposed to Christianity but with them believing something almost like Christianity, but not quite.

VERSE 1

English Standard Version Chapter 4

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world

These 6 verses sort of drop in almost out of nowhere. Clearly the apostle is wanting to take a moment to once again warn these believers against those teaching false doctrines.

What is apparent is that false prophets, false apostles and false teaching all abounded in the early church. People were masquerading as Christians, giving themselves titles; prophet, apostle, teacher.

The Greek for False Prophet is Pseudoprophetai

But they would have been easy to tell apart from the true Christians right? Well, apparently it wasn’t always that easy. And that’s what this passage deals with today.

Verse 1 begins with 2 imperatives; two commands. One negative and one positive;

Beloved, DO NOT believe every spirit

But TEST the spirits

John is calling them to use discernment; to discriminate. To withold instant assent to or agreement with any teaching or prophecy claiming to be from God.

Basically he’s saying, look, don’t be so gullable. Don’t be in a rush to yell AMEN!

Sometimes it’s ok to say, ‘I don’t know about that, but I’ll go home and check it out in my Bible.’

Being a Christian isn’t mindless, easy-believism. That’s what the cults are about! Disengage your mind, believe this, it will make you more successful, more wealthy, more healthy, it will give you a sense of peace. Christianity isn’t interested in what makes you feel good, it’s concerned with what is true.

A healthy church is a church where believers are concerned about truth, they won’t believe something because it makes them feel a certain way, but they’ll believe something only because it is true.

So how do we know what is true? We TEST the spirits.

We mustn’t think of spirits here as disembodied souls or something weird like that! There are a couple of interpretations of what he means by spirits here:

That its a metonym or another name for the teachers themselves

That he means that behind every individual claiming to be speaking on God’s behalf that there is a spirit, or a spiritual influence.

I think both explanations are possible. He’s certainly refering to human agents who are prophesying and teaching in Christs name, and it’s true also that behind every teaching claiming to be from God there is a spiritual influence. Whether the holy spirit in the case of Christians or a demonic spirit in the case of false prophets.

The second command follows the first in the POSITIVE - Test the Spirits

It’s what we mean when we say ‘Be a Berean.’ The Bereans were more ‘fair-minded’ than those in Thessalonika. Why? Because they readily received what they heard and went and immediately searched the scriptures daily to find out whether what they’d heard was true.

the faithful should not receive any doctrine thoughtlessly and without discrimination. - Calvin

This is called discernment;

1 Thessalonians 5:21

but test everything; hold fast what is good.

Discrimination is kind of a dirty word these days, but you have to use discrimination every day. I mean it’s good to discriminate between the various medicines you might keep in the cupboard isn’t it?! We descriminate between the truth and lies, using scripture.

Moreover, it’s not just the scriptures we need. We need the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth living inside us to help guide us as we read the Bible, so we can come to a right interpretation.

Then we need one another! It’s good to study the scriptures ourselves, but saying we each come to a different interpretation about a certain passage. Does that mean that the passage itself has multiple meanings, some of which contradict? No. This is when we can come together with other Christians and compare and contrast the varying interpretations together to see which holds water.

John strengthens his two commands with a warning; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

It only took a matter of months and years for Satan to send a counterfeit army of pseudo prophets and teachers into the world.

The devil can’t create but he can counterfeit.

The devil doesn’t care at all if you know Jesus or love Jesus or pray to Jesus – as long as it is a false Jesus, a make-believe Jesus, a Jesus who is not there, and who therefore cannot save. - Guzik

If the devil’s counterfeit prophets and teachers came dressed in red with horns and a poker we’d be safe. But just as a wolf stalks its prey by stealth and camouflage so the devil makes his servants hard to spot.

As Jesus says ‘they will come to you in sheep’s clothing’. Sure, they’ll quote from the Bible. They’ll likely appear sincere, they’ll be charming, inoffensive.

Jesus said that these false prophets can even perform signs and wonders, not just any old signs but great signs.

So a false prophet isn’t going to have a forked tongue and cloven hooves; they’re likely to be carrying a Bible, they’ll look the part, and they may even have a ministry of signs and wonders.

So signs and wonders and using the Bible in your preaches don’t prove that one is truly a genuine Christian minister? That’s correct

What is the aim of the false prophet? To influence you.

Matthew 24:24

For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.

How will they lead astray? Through heresy, ‘false doctrine.’

2 Peter 2:1

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.

Heresy is destructive. And they’re not going to be teaching the heresy openly and plainly, but they’ll be burying it. Teaching it by inferrence often.

"Ambiguity is the fortress of heretics." - Calvin

And this is how we can tell a false prophet apart from a true one. What do they teach? That is the question! Not, how do they make me feel, did they give me an accurate word, were there healings. Even Pharaoh’s magicians were able to mimic the signs God worked through Moses up to a point.

VERSE 2 -3

1 John 4:1–3 ESV

1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.

How can we tell a false prophet from a true one? Their teaching on key doctrines is going to be iffy.

In John’s day it was Jesus’s humanity that the false prophets denied. Today it’s often His divinity that they deny; Jesus was a man sent from God they’ll say, but was He Himself God? No!

Some will teach that Jesus was simply a born again man like you or me, that given the right circumstances in theory we could have done what He did.

The litmus test for false prophets, apostles and teachers is always doctrine. Do they teach what the true Apostles taught, does their teaching line up with scripture or are they twisting the scripture, or ignoring large portions of scripture.

The strength of a false prophet is always your ignorance. They’ll drop scriptures here and there to support what they say, all the while thinking ‘they won’t take the trouble to actually look that scripture up in it’s proper context, they’re lazy.’

VERSES 4-6

English Standard Version Chapter 4

4 Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. 5 They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

YOU, THEY, WE

YOU - You are of God and have overcome them! How have they overcome the false prophets? Because He who is in them is greater than he who is in the world!

We overcome the devil and his army of false teachers not because of our own abilities, confessions or works but because of the friend and comforter who has taken up residence in us; The Holy Spirit.

When the Holy Spirit conquers your heart He never loses it. God will never be overpowered in the battle for the heart of His children. He will always be victorious over the devil.

Therefore we will also be ultimately be victorious over the devils lies.

THEY - They are of the world - They are of a spirit, the spirit of him who is in the world; the devil. So when they speak, when they teach they do so as of the world, they speak out of the same spirit as that of the world.

So guess what, the world is attracted to them.

One of the strangest things is that the Bible tells us clearly that false teachers will prosper to a degree, they will be popular! Perhaps we think that it would be impossible for someone who’s ultimately trying to trick God to win people to themselves. But that’s exactly what happens because what they say is appealing to those who are of the world. They appeal to the things that the world values; money, fame, influence, power.

Scottish preacher Alistair Begg said to his congregation; ‘truth be told, I could get this church having four packed out services every Sunday in the space of a year. All I’d need to do is stop preaching from the scriptures, throw in some anecdotes, some funny stories and we’d be half way there.’

US - Who is the us? It can only be the same us referred to in the very first chapter of the letter. It refers to John and his fellow apostles. Whoever listens to what they are saying is of God, whoever is not from God doesn’t listen to them.

There was a man called Cerinthus; a contemporary of John. Cerinthus was highly educated, and although none of his writings have survived we know that he was very influential. It’s likely that it was the teachings of Cerinthus the Gnostic who John specifically warns against in this book. Cerinthus didn’t deny Jesus, he claimed to follow Jesus. However, he taught that Jesus only became the Christ at his baptism and that the Christ anointing left Him on the cross. In this Cerinthus demonstrated his refusal to listen to John and the other apostles; who clearly taught that Jesus was Christ from birth until death.

How can we possibly apply this test today, since the apostles are all dead now. How can we tell who is ‘listening to them’ and who isnt? The Holy Spirit has preserved the words of the Apostles in the canon of the new testament.

Whoever listens and submits to the words of scripture is of God, whoever does not is not.