Check Your Sources
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It continues to be an honor and privilege to serve this church through the presentation of the Word of God. I must say that I am highly encouraged by the vitality I am seeing around the church. We are gearing up on efforts to advance our missional and evangelical efforts in the church and that is always excited. I am thankful for each and every one of you and hope that all of us are eagerly willing and ready to serve the Lord in this next season of our ministry at Durbin Memorial Baptist Church. May everything we do be centered on giving God the glory and professing Jesus as Savior and Lord.
Today we are going to continue on in our look at the book of 1 John. I shared with you last week a quote from Pastor Warren Weirsbe that equated the book of 1 John to a spiral staircase that wraps around the ideas of obedience, love, and truth. John uses all three of those concepts to give the reader assurance of their personal salvation while at the same time, he is equipping the reader to be able to discern false teachers. I’l remind you that you have been tasked with evaluating your self and the voices that you listen to for teaching. It is not your job to evaluate every person you know’s spiritual position. They must work that at themselves. Rather you are to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling at seek to honor God by listening to or being influenced by voices that share the goal of honoring God.
In a recent sermon I shared the phrase, “All that glisters or glitters is not gold.” Before we get in our text today, I want to return to this idea.
I once bought a pair of sunglasses that I really liked. I bought them off a friend who got them from somewhere online. These were designer sunglasses. One of the big names, you know like oakley or ray ban or one of those. My friend had an extra pair and so they asked me if I wanted to buy them. Now these glasses would normally go for upwards of $200 but these were going to be less than $50. I jumped on the deal. It was too good to pass up!
So I got the glasses and I took them home and I started to inspect them. I really liked them and couldn’t believe that I got them for such a low price. I wanted to make sure that they were properly cared for, so I went to the manufacturers website and found the pair that I had received. As I was looking at the website, I started to notice some differences between the image on the screen and the glasses that I had in my hand. Very minor differences, but differences nonetheless. I was alarmed so I started up looking up the identifiers of fake sunglasses. And wouldn’t you know it, but the glasses in my hand were not authentic at all.
Now, in the case of sunglasses this wasn’t a big deal. The glasses I received from my well meaning friend worked well for my needs and were still worth the discounted amount that I had paid. When it comes to receiving fake sunglasses the worst that can happen is potentially overpaying for an inferior product. That wasn’t really the case in my situation.
But I use that story to illustrate how easy it is to bring in something that is fake. I didn’t know. My friend didn’t know. It wasn’t until I looked to the authentic source that I was made aware of the truth.
Once again, that’s no big deal when it comes to sunglasses. But when it comes to our theology, our eternal position and destiny authentic, true belief is not only a big deal, it is the biggest deal!
Jesus says in
Matthew 7:22–23 (ESV)
On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ (LORD DIDN’T I HAVE IT RIGHT? DIDN’T I DO THE THINGS I WAS SUPPOSED TO DO? DIDN’T MY GOOD WORKS MUSTER ENOUGH RIGHTEOUSNESS?) And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
Counterfeit faith will never be sufficient. But as we have seen throughout our look at 1 John, there is much of it going around and it is easy to be deceived. But even still, every person will face judgement one day.
And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,
So then, we must not be deceived. We must take effort right here right now to know what is true. But when I say we, I am talking about each every one of us individually. When your time of judgment comes, you will be answering for yourself.
Weirsbe shared a story about George Whitefield.
The Bible Exposition Commentary Chapter Five: Truth or Consequences (1 John 2:18–29)
George Whitefield, the great British evangelist, was speaking to a man about his soul. He asked the man, “Sir, what do you believe?”
“I believe what my church believes,” the man replied respectfully.
“And what does your church believe?”
“The same thing I believe.”
“And what do both of you believe?” the preacher inquired again.
“We both believe the same thing!” was the only reply he could get.
A man is not saved by assenting to a church creed. He is saved by trusting Jesus Christ and bearing witness to his faith (Rom. 10:9–10).
We are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. That is the message that you must know to the core of your being. We must watch out for those who would distract from that message.
Open up your bibles to 1 John 4.
All of what we have been talking about thus far sets the stage for the purpose of this message. Today we will be looking at verse 1-6 and I have entitled this message, “Check Your Sources”.
What I love about this section of Scripture is that it is actionable. By that I mean that it does not just tell us what to do, but gives us the blueprint to do it. I’ve heard many sermons and probably given many as well that tell you what the problem is, but do not give you the plan for how to actually address the problem. That won’t be the case today. John gives us the clear criterion for checking our spiritual sources.
Read with me verse 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.
In this first verse John relays both the problem that we have and the response that we need to address it. He says that many false prophets have gone out into the world. We will expound on the nature of these voices and what they are saying a bit later on, but for now all we have to know is that false prophets exists. This means that there are false messages circulating in the world. So then, because it is a reality that nor every message is true, we have to test the spirits to see whether they are from God. We can’t just believe everything that we hear.
Allow me to share some of the context of what they were dealing with when John wrote this letter and then we will look at our context today. At the time of writing this letter, the New Testament had not been collected in the systematic way that we have in our Bibles. The church service would be less formal than ours today. So it wouldn’t be uncommon for a visitor to stand and claim to speak by the Spirit of God and the members of the church wouldn’t have all of the full collection of Scripture that we would to point out the errors. So in what we will soon see, John gives a very binary test to distinguish between true and false.
We must also note that as one pastor wrote, (Daniel Akin) “behind every prophet, every proclamation, there is an energizing spirit. Their message will inform us as to the origin and source of their message. They are not all from God.”
So John tells his readers and us today to test the Spirits. He says do not believe every spirit. Some suggest that the greek used here could be rendered “STOP BELIEVING” every spirit. The truth is that there are many voices vying for attention, but most of them are not worthy of your belief. Back then, and still today we have to stop believing everything we hear and test it. This means that just because you found a book at a Christian Book Store that does not mean it is true. Just because there is pastor on television, that does not mean they are preaching truth. In fact as we will see later, that should maybe even give you pause. Just because someone claims the name of Christ does not make them a good voice to listen to!
And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.
There are many disguised as an angel of light or servants of righteousness that are being used by Satan to spread confusion and condemnation. And so we must be on alert. We must be Bereans, and I’m not talking about that city south of Richmond.
The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.
In the Bereans we get a glimpse of how we should test the spirits as John says. It says there in Acts 17:11 that they examined the Scriptures to see if what they were told was true. They are noble for doing so.
Church we have to test the things we are listening to by the Word of God. If someone is trying to sell you false doctrine, you gain nothing from accepting it. And worse, your walk can be tripped up and hampered.
We see from the Bereans that they examined Scripture to prove what they had heard. On that same line, in the next couple of verses from 1 John 4, John gives us the primary test for discerning false messages:
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, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.
So the first verse of chapter 4 tells us to test every spirit. Here in verses 2 and 3 we see that the ultimate test is Jesus.
Now. At first glance verse two seems like a very simple statement, but there is a lot to unpack in that simple statement. Allow me to read this a few times, each time with a different empahsis
1 John 4:2 (ESV)
every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,
Every spirit, every utterance, every source of a message that confesses that Jesus has has come in the flesh is from God.
every spirit that confesses, proclaims, hold it be true, swear to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth so help me God, that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God
Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ, that is the Messiah, the Savior, the Lord of lords and King of kings, has come in the flesh is from God.
Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, he is God incarnate, that fully God yet Fully man, that he was Tempted in every way yet without sin, that he is The high priest that empathizes with man, that His blood was shed, that His body was broken, is from God.
Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, preaching and teaching sound and saving doctrine.
I hope that you can see that there is a lot that can gleaned from a simple statement like every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.
We see in verse 3 that any spirit that denies the truth of Jesus is not from God.
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.
Just like a few weeks ago when we talked about antichrists, here we see that those who would deny Jesus are working against Him, they are of the spirit of the antichrist. Which we learned literally means against Christ. While there will be a great deceiver during the End times, the spirit of the antichrist is already here in that there are those working against Christ.
The main thing to see in these two verses is that the view of Jesus is the number one test for discerning false teaching. One seminary president wrote,
Exalting Jesus in 1,2,3 John Are You Confessing the True Jesus? (1 John 4:2–3)
Howard Marshall well says, “If a person claims to believe in Jesus, it is proper to ask, ‘Is your Jesus the real Jesus?’ ” (The Epistles of John, 207). What one thinks about Jesus has enormous consequences. In a real sense, it determines everything! Tell me what you think about Jesus, and I will tell you 95 percent of the rest of your theology. He is the center, the hub of all theology. All of it radiates out from Him. So once more: Are you confessing the true Christ? Do you confess with the apostles, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Matt 16:16)?
And so our test of false teachers should be rooted in their view of Jesus. Is He the savior? Do they profess that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone? Or are they disguised as servants of righteousness while shilling out a message that is actually Jesus +. That is you are saved by Jesus, but its Jesus + your works. It’s Jesus + speaking in tongues. It’s Jesus + finding satisfaction in earthly possessions.
It would be impossible for me to list everything that every false teacher has attempted to add to the gospel but I can tell you that anything that could ever come after the plus is worthless and deception.
John tells us why anything added in excess of Jesus is worthless in the next verse.
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.
Once again we see the precious endearment that John has the church. He says Little children. As a spiritual Father and leader he is guiding the church in Ephesus and us today from a point of genuine care and concern. My little children.
You are from God. You are born again. You have been adopted into sonship. You are a part of the family of God. You have been saved by grace through faith. In so, you have overcome the deceptive spirits. You’ve been exposed to the light of the gospel. You’ve been drawn to repentance by the Holy Spirit. You’ve been regenerated. You are sealed unto the day of redemption.
In that sense, you are victorious, you have conquered the deceitful spirits. But at the same time, we must remember that it wasn’t really us who did the conquering. It all comes back to Christ. He who is in you is greater than He who is in the world.
Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection from the tomb, is what our faith is in and where our victory is found.
One pastor says:
Exalting Jesus in 1,2,3 John Are You Trusting in the Greater Spirit? (1 John 4:4)
1. Do not take credit for your listening ear or your confessing heart or your correct view of Christ. Give credit to the Spirit who is in you, and give God the glory.
2. When you are threatened by any deception of the evil one—any temptation, or discouragement, or anxiety, or cowardice—remind yourself that “he who is in you is greater than he that is in the world.” Almighty God abides within you. Trust him. For this is the victory that overcomes the world, your faith (5:4) in the sovereign indwelling power of the Holy Spirit.
You may say Brad, I agree that I have been saved. I know that God gets all the glory. But if I am truly victorious, then why are their still those trying to deceive me? If I have been sealed unto the day of redemption, why am I still in this spiritual battle?
As I was reading The Pursuit of Holiness this week, I came across a quote that put all of our struggles with sin and deception on this side of glory into perspective.
Jerry Bridges wrote, “In a particular nation two competing factions were fighting for control of the country. Eventually, with the help of an outside army, one faction won the war and assumed control of the nation's government. But the losing side did not stop fighting. They simply changed their tactics to guerrilla warfare and continued to fight. In fact, they were so successful that the country supplying the outside help could not withdraw its troops.”
God has given us the Holy Spirit, the spirit of truth, because we are at war. The enemy still fights. So we have to put on the armor of God and prepare for battle. But we can do so with hope knowing that we are victorious not by our own doing, we are victorious because Christ conquered sin and death and by faith we share in that victory.
So while we have overcome false teaching as evidenced in our salvation, we must also be diligent.
Church, we have to check our sources.
They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. 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.
When I was in seminary I had to take a course on the proper way to do research. We went through a rigorous review of the different places to find scholarly sources. We were warned about the internet. The internet makes it very easy to find information, but that information the you find is often not trustworthy. One of the places that we were always told to avoid, both in undergraduate and seminary, was Wikipedia. If you don’t know, Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia. However, basically anyone can edit any page. Which can be a good thing so long as people are sharing their collective knowledge. However, we know good and well that people do not always share truth! For instance if you had been doing research on Tap Dancing you may come across the wikipedia page for Eduardo Corrochio who won the 1890 Tap Dancing Championship in New York City. However, the only problem with all that is that Eduardo Corrochio never actually existed and the name was actually taken from an episode of Seinfield.
Now I don’t know why you’d be researching the history of tap dance, but the point here is that you have to evaluate your sources carefully.
We’ve seen through this message that Christ is the key to evaluating the sources you allow to influence your life.
In these last two verses, John is explaining that because you have Christ in you and He is greater than Satan who is in the world, then because of that, you must be listening to the voices that support that truth and throw out all the waste.
He says in verse 5
They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them.
This is all the deceivers. They’re from the world. The world listens to the world. Here’s the thing, all the voices seeking to influence others might not be behind a pulpit, but they’re all preaching something. And by and large, those who are of the world eat up the message of the world.
But here is what we must remember, if you have been saved by grace through faith, then you are no longer of this world. That message has no value to you. You have seen the greater, you have been given the victory. You have the spirit of truth. You can listen to and understand the things that are above. The meaning of Scripture and its Christ-centered nature is made known by the Holy Spirit. Look back at verse 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.
So far in this section of Scripture when John is addressing the church he says you. “You heard was coming.” “He who is in YOU”
And here in verse 6 John uses we. So who is we? When John uses “we” he is referring to the consistent apostolic teaching that has been consistent since the great commission. He’s saying, I’m the old guy, if you remember John is around 90 years old, the last living apostle at this point, and he’s saying that all of the apostles have given a consistent message from the beginning. So if someone says that they know God then the message they preach will be in line with message that the apostles have preached from the beginning.
The Bible Exposition Commentary Chapter Five: Truth or Consequences (1 John 2:18–29)
The Christian life continues just as it began: through faith in the Bible’s message. A religious leader who comes along with “something new,” something that contradicts what Christians have “heard from the beginning,” is not to be trusted.
But that leaves us with an interesting problem. We’re now nearly 2000 years removed from the original apostolic message. How then are we supposed to know what is to be trusted and the correct message upon which to base our theology?
Well, our sovereign God has graciously provided us with the recorded testimony of His apostles. And as one preach put it, “through a certain kind of preaching” we are able to correctly share the message that God gave to the apostles. That is expository preaching. It is called such because it “exposes what the apostles have written and the meaning and application of their words. When you listen to the word of God expositionally preached, you are listen to the apostles, and ultimately you are listening to God himself.”
Jesus said to his disciples in Matthew
“Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me.
So that is why this church and I am so staunchly adamant about everything we do being centered around and faithful to the Word of God. The Word of God is the recorded testimony. It shows us our need of a Savior and how God provides such a Savior through God-incarnate, Jesus Christ.
Christ came to save sinners. The Holy Spirit has convicted me of that truth and drawn me to repentant faith in Jesus Christ. That is true for every single person in this room who possesses saving faith. There is no truth that compares the truth of Christ. There is no other path to salvation than Jesus Christ.
For those of you who know the Lord, start checking your sources. Don’t just let something influence you because it looks good or even claims to be Christian. I’m being serious when I say evaluate me. Don’t just accept truth because I say it. Check it by the Word of God. For too many Christians we have been deceived and distracted by false teachers and the efficacy of our ministry has been damaged. Let’s remember what it said in verse one of our text today and stop believing every spirit and test the things that wish to influence our lives.
But if you find yourself swimming in a sea of voices, not knowing where truth actually is. Know this Jesus said He is the way, the Truth and the Life. He said He is the only way to the Father, the only way to Salvation. He says in John 10:27
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
So let me ask, Do you hear Him calling? Don’t be distracted by the false spirits in the world any longer, follow THE truth. Come to Christ today, respond by coming down to the front during this hymn of response. come today.