Sermon Tone Analysis

In 2013, Christian rapper Shai Linne stirred quite a controversy with his song “False Teachers.”

It is a critique of the prosperity gospel, and in it he does the unacceptable in our hypertolerant/noncritical society today: he names names.

In the song.

Shai particularly calls on Christians outside of America not to be deceived by these “wolves in sheep’s clothing” (Matt.

7:15) who export their heresies around the world.

He says:

Don’t be deceived by this funny biz,

if you come to Jesus for money, then he’s not your God, money is!

Jesus is not a means to an end, the Gospel is.

He came to redeem us from sin, and that is the message forever I yell!

If you’re living your best life now your’re heading for hell!

Turn off TBN, that channel is overrated.

The pastors speak bogus statements, financially motivated.

It’s kind of like a pyramid scheme.

Visualize heretics Christianizing the American dream.

It’s foul and deceitful, the’re lying to people,

teaching that camels squeeze through the eye of a needle!

(John Piper via Twitter said of the son, “My, my, Shai, this is good.”)

Calling out and identifying false teachers is neither fun, nor popular in our culture today.

Six times John will use the phrase “from the world” and six times he will use the phrase “from God”

It is amazing those who are of “the world” and not “from God” have worked their way into the Churches today.

John now provides us a test we must apply to determine whether something or someone is from the world, or from God.

This test is more important than any test you will ever take in school.

It’s results are a matter of life and death.

Big Idea: The Spirit of Truth breaths Life, the Spirit of the World Breaths Death.

How do we Know if we are listening to the right Spirit?

1. Are you listening to the right Message and Messenger?

Note: We are impressed by the novel or the unusual, and it is tempting to ascribe such things to the power of God.

But John specifically warns us not to believe all that we are told, but to discern its origin, whether it comes from God or not.

Notice that John indicates that many false teachers have gone out into the world, these people may be very charismatic, they may be very enthusiastic about the message they are giving and may actually believe what they are proclaiming.

This is like those football supporters who make the most extravagant claims about the imminent success of their mediocre teams.

You see it at the beginning of every NFL season every coach and owner tries to sell their teams on the idea that they have what it takes to be a Super Bowl Contender.

Events will later prove that what they say has been deluded.

Their claims are false.

Or they could be the lies of those who are imposters, deliberately wanting to deceive others for their own personal benefit.

Miraculous powers are not proof in themselves of the truth of those who exercise them.

There were some magicians in Egypt who could imitate some of the miraculous deeds God did through Moses (Ex.

7:22;8:7).

There was Simon, the Samaritan sorcerer, who had amazed people for a long time with his magic (Acts 8:11) such signs are to be tested.

HOW CAN WE TELL IF THE MESSAGE AND MESSENGER ARE TRUE

*Examine what they Say

(1) Test to see if the message comes true.

This is a very useful test however, it cannot be applied at the time the message is given.

An earlier chapter emphasizes that the content of the message is the all-important factor.

(2) Test to see if the message leads people to worship something or someone other than God.

The test is not whether it feels right but whether it is true or not.

There is a plumb line of God’s reveled truth in the scriptures that must be applied.

Every Christian has this most important responsibility to test it against the word of God to determine whether it is true or not.

Every preacher should say often to his congregation, “Do not believe it because I say it, but because God says it in his Word.”

He will want to produce a congregation of ‘Bereans’ who examine the Scriptures every day to see if what it said is true.

I often become skeptical of any preachers who seldom or rarely refer to scriptures in their sermons.

I had a family come to the Journey a while back who commented after the first message that they heard more scripture proclaimed in one message than they did in their whole time at their former Church.

Our Christian pop-culture has led people to worship personalities in the pulpit rather than the Creator of the Universe.

We say we follow so and so, or we ascribe to so and so’s podcast.

Does the person bringing the message make himself bigger the one who has the words of Life.

Some people may be led to worship religious activity or prosperity over the gospel.

Paul hears word from the Church at Corinth that there is a division arising where some say they follow Paul, or Apollos, Of I follow Christ.

Paul responds,

“Is Christ divided?

Was Paul crucified for you?

Or were you Baptized into the name of Paul?

I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one may say that they were baptized in my name.”

1 John 3:24 “Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him, and by this we know that he abides in us, by the spirit whom he has given us.

The last part of 3:24 refers to the testimony of the Holy Spirit.

According to this verse we gain assurance of God’s presence in the message we are hearing by the spirit that has been given to us.

The Spirit testifies that we are God’s children.

How does the spirits testimony express itself in your life?

What is a testimony?

A testimony is the presentation of evidence that should help a jury decide the truth of a claim.

A testimony is valuable to the degree that it can be counted as good evidence in deciding if a claim is true.

The evidence that the Holy Spirit presents to our own spirits and to the community is first of all the evidence of love.

The Spirit puts within us a humble heart of love and gives evidence of his presence and power.

The same spirit also testifies to the evidence of whether something is from the spirit or from another source all together.

(3) Test to see if the message confesses the true Jesus of the Bible.

What does it mean to “Confess?”

This creates somewhat of a problem for us.

We know that there are those who can say true things about Jesus who are not in fact born of God or indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

If we paid him enough we could call someone off of the street and get him to make any confession we wanted here in front of the whole church, and it would be no evidence at all of his belonging to God.

And Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven.”

(Matthew 7:21).

In other words, merely saying right things about Jesus is not sign of the Holy Spirit’s presence.

So what does Jesus mean when he says in verse 2 that “every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God”?

The answer must lie in what John means by the word to “confess.”

In 1:9 John say’s, “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins.”

What does confess mean hear?

It does not merely mean mouthing a bunch of words, “I know I am a sinner.”

WE all know that forgiveness and reconciliation do not happen when the words of an apology are glib or insincere.

If we say to one of our children, “tell your brother you’re sorry,” and he says begrudgingly, “I’m sorry,” it does not achieve reconciliation.

The confession must be sincere.

It must come from the heart.

It must be more than mere words.

There has to be a disposition corresponding to the offense committed.

Real regret, Godly sorrow, Real contrition.

Then forgiveness and reconciliation happen.

So, when John talks about evidence of divine spirituality being in the “confession” that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, he probably does not mean that the mere words or thoughts are sufficient evidence.

Just because someone can say that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is in no way a sure sign that they are of God or even truly believe what they are saying.

HEARTFELT REVERENCE, CONVICTION, AND SUBMISSION

So the Holy Spirit bears witness to the genuineness of a believer or a prophet in two ways.

One is by producing the fruit of love.

And the other is by producing a genuine confession of doctrinal truth about Jesus Christ.

(Howard Marshall)