Good morning. It's good to be together today on this warm day. And speaking of warm, I think I'll just adjust the fan here to try to stay cool so I can have a clear mind. I want to give thanks to you all for praying for us. I heard that in the prayer meetings and in the worship services the last two weeks, You covered us in prayer and your prayers were answered. We had a delightful time at Emanuel Reformed Baptist Church in Seattle and we can continue to pray for them in our prayer meetings that the Lord might send them a shepherd as they continue their search for a pastor. The title of the message today as we resume our exposition in the epistle of John, his first letter, is testing the spirits, a call to biblical discernment. A call to biblical discernment. And it's no secret that it's easy to verify facts by reasoning. For example, we all know that George Washington was indeed the first president of the United States, that he actually did live and was involved in the founding of this country. We know that three plus three is not seven, right? Three plus three is six. And so we conclude that by reasoning and mathematical equations, which are either right or wrong. But spiritual truth and error, are not identified by reasoning alone. Spiritual things require spiritual discernment. Satan desires to undermine God's truth. That is his mission. And really the world has never been without heresy at any given time. Fantastic expressions and notions and cults and all of that. And God's revelation has always sought to be counterfeited by false prophets. So we see this all the way in the Old Testament. You see it in the New Testament era. You study church history, you see it right away, right after the apostles were dying off. In fact, John is addressing heresies that were going on in his day, around A.D. 95 or so, is when I think he was writing. But what is heresy? One definition that I think is helpful is an aberrant doctrine or opinion arising often within the church in opposition to biblical revelation and apostolic tradition. And if you think about that, many heresies and many heretics come out of the church. They're brought up in the church, in some religious setting or another, and then what happens is this aberrant embracing of error that does not agree with the Word of God, and then cults are born. Many claim to speak for God, or that they've received prophetic revelations, such as Joseph Smith, the founder of what? Mormonism, right? Muhammad, founder of Islam, right? Special revelations came directly to him. Spiritual discernment plays then a crucial role for us living today. It is absolutely essential that we have spiritual discernment to be able to test the things that we hear. The spirits, when it says test the spirits, it's not talking about invisible spirits flying around, it's talking about those who are teaching, those who are giving utterance to claim to speak on behalf of God. And we'll talk about how we test those because John lays that out. Within the church, even today, many claim to speak directly on behalf of God, and they use the formula like the prophets did, thus says the Lord. You can turn on certain TV God channels, false God channels, and you'll hear this, thus says the Lord, God gave me a word, and this kind of thing, and I have a word for you. And in the first century, there were traveling prophets that would go around saying similar things. Some claim to have supernatural power. There's one person I would not advise you to watch or listen to named Todd Bentley who is at it again and he claims that he raised someone from the dead in India a couple years ago and then just last month that his preaching was being aired through a radio station at a hospital and someone came back to life. These are incredible claims, and his message does not agree with the Word of God. He puts himself on a pedestal that he sees supernatural powers. Don't listen to them. In fact, true Christians cannot endure error. You can't sit long under false teaching because your spirit will not agree with that spirit, as it were. In fact, in our text, it says, they are of the world, therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. Yeah, they're gonna gather a crowd, but it's goats. A lot of goats gather together. And I believe we live in days where, as Paul says in 2 Thessalonians, for this reason God will send upon them a diluting influence so that they will believe what is false. And do we not see that in our day? There are so many that embrace aberrant views of God and who Christ is, that there is a diluting influence that has been poured out upon many in our day. Well, take your Bibles, turn to the end of the New Testament. Towards the end, 1 John chapter 4 verses 1 to 6 is our text. Verses 1 to 6 of 1 John 4, and I'm reading from the New American Standard. Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are of 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 has not come from God, and is the spirit of antichrist, of which you have heard that he is coming. now 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 is from the world and the world listens to them we are from God, 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. Let's pray. Oh, Father, once again we ask that you would be pleased to attend unto the message that is to be delivered. Lord, we know that you put great emphasis on the ministry of the Word in the context of the gathering of the saints for corporate worship. And so Lord, help the weak one that is speaking. I pray that you would help the weak ones in the pew to remove distractions and cares. And Lord, we ask that you would pour out your blessed spirit upon this place, that we would know that you are present with us, that you are attending unto these things, that you are driving these truths deep down into our heart. And Lord, our heart aches. First and foremost, we should examine ourselves as we test ourselves and test where we're at and what we are assessment of Christ. But also our heart aches as we see so many false religions in this world and so many deceived by it. So many who believe a lie of who Christ is. So Lord, give us not only discernment to discern these things, but give us compassion for those that are blinded by Satan. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, without giving too much review, back in chapter 3, the last few messages have been on love. Verse 11, for this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. That's been a theme that's going throughout. And he demonstrates what that love looks like and what it doesn't look like. John, again, is a master of contrast, right? And so not as Cain, who slew his brother, but were to love, sacrificially laying down our lives for one another, as it were. And then the very practical application, whoever is the world's goods and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him. Very strong language, like slamming the front door and bolt locking it shut. How does the love of God abide in you? And then he goes on to talk about our assurance that we have by this. We know that we are of the truth and we will assure our hearts before God in whatever our heart condemns us, for God is greater than our hearts and he knows all things. So sometimes our conscience can falsely condemn us. It rises up as the lawyer, the judge, and the executor of the sentence. And other times it's good because our conscience is telling us that what we're doing is wrong, and it should lead to conviction of sin, repentance of that sin, and renewal with Christ. And we know that there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And then notice at the end, verse 24, 324, the one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in Him, and we know by this that He abides in us by the Spirit whom He has given us. So that kind of leads into today. As he mentioned, his theme is love. And 4.7, he's going to come back to love. 4.7, Beloved, let us love one another. But by the mention of the Holy Spirit at the end of verse 24, John says, I'm going to divert now and address something that's altogether important. It's almost like a section that doesn't fit. If you took out verses 1 to 6 and just went from 24 to verse 7, it would be very, very natural. But Paul, or Paul, John, sees the urgency to address this in light of the error that was going on around them. And so after he gives the command to test the spirits, John gives a theological test and an ethical test, of which we will examine. Our text today concerns the source of true and false teaching. And there is a phrase, and if you paid attention in John 8, it occurs in John's other writings, but the phrase, of God. Is this of God or is it not of God? And of God occurs six times in these six verses. And every verse, I think, but verse five and twice in verse six. And so he's giving us a test here. He's giving us some information by which we can discern truth from error. John is calling us, brethren, to Christian maturity. To not remain babes that are sucking on the bottle or on the breast. I mean, there's nothing more gross than a seven-year-old on its mother's breast, right? I mean, there's something wrong with that. You should have graduated to solid food some time ago. And so too in the Christian life. We're not to be gullible. We're not to remain children who are tossed to and fro. But we are to grow to Christian maturity that we might have biblical discernment. So he gives a clarion call to those who are listening. And how do we gain biblical discernment? It's obviously the Word of God. It's having a steady diet of the Word of God. Reading it in your personal devotions, hearing it proclaimed publicly, that is the way. And the state of California, it's required, if you're a student, to have at least one year of California history. And one of the things that they teach in California history is the gold rush, right? Remember in 1848, I think it was, when it began, the gold rush. And the great California gold rush. And some who discovered gold were made instantly rich. Others would be out there and discover something that they thought was gold and came all the way back only to find out that it's fool's gold. And what's fool's gold? It's that pyrite, right? It looks like gold. There's gold in it. But if you test it, it's not gold. And so the prospectors learned, we need to be able to discern out there, while we're out there panning for the gold, if it's true gold or not. And so they came up with a touchstone. It was typically white ceramic. And if you drug the real gold on it, it would leave a yellow streak. If you drug pyrite on it, it would leave like a greenish black line. And so, too, for us Christians, we are bombarded with doctrines and teachings that need to be tested. And often, all too often, false teaching and the cults, for that matter, they blend air truth like there's some truth there's some biblical truth that are there well of course we believe in Jesus for example right of course we believe in God I mean you talk to the Mormon or the Jehovah's Witness right they believe in God they believe in Jesus but when you get below the surface but but who really is Christ Is he the second person of the Holy Trinity, very God of God? And then you begin to see the deceit and the error. So we're going to consider this text three points today. Verse 1, the call for biblical discernment. Verses 2 and 3, the call to declare who Jesus is. And lastly, verses 4 to 6, the call to guard what you listen to. So first of all, verse 1, let's read it again. 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. First of all, he uses this term beloved, a term of endearment, of great affection, but also John uses this, if you study the book as a whole, at important junctures in the book, and usually an imperative, a command, follows after expressing that assurance, you are my beloved, you're near, you're kindred, but then he gives an exhortation, he gives a command, and that's the case here. And he actually gives two commands in the first half of this verse. And if you remember from previous expositions, there's not a lot of commands. The Apostle Paul, lots of commands in his epistles. John, there's really not a lot of imperatives. But here there's two back-to-back. And the first is this, do not believe every spirit. It's present tense, so it could be translated, stop believing every spirit. Stop believing everything that comes down the pike. Just because someone makes a claim that they were sent by God does not mean that you just listen hook, line, and sinker to what they have to say and be deluded. We must examine these things. We need the biblical discernment that God calls us to. The Jews were told to practice discernment, weren't they? Our brother Steve read in our Old Testament reading, Deuteronomy 13, to discern regarding the false prophets. to examine where they're from. Jesus himself says, beware the false prophets who come to you in what? Sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. False prophets don't come with that tattooed on their head and lights blinking or anything, right? They come in sheep's clothing. They look like a man of God. The Apostle Paul, writing to the church in Corinth, says in his second letter, 11.3, "'But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit of which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully." So John is admonishing those who have been tolerating false teachings. So don't believe, stop believing every spirit. Second command, but test the spirits to see if they are of God. And here's the phrase, of God. What does it mean? Well, 16 times this phrase occurs in this letter, six in our text today. And it means those who confess who Jesus is correctly, that they believe that He really did come in the flesh, in the incarnation, but that He really was the God-man. Okay, and so that's the idea of God. It's those who embrace that. And the word he uses here for test is a fascinating word. It means to make a critical examination of something, to determine the genuineness, as it were, to examine and to put to the test. It's the word that was used of assaying metals, and so various metals would be tested for their purity. So that's the idea behind this word. And so we're to scrutinize, we're to examine very, very carefully whether this spirit is from God or not. And so the word is used in the Bible of doctrinal and ethical self-assessment. Simply put, to evaluate the utterances of other teachers. Are they from God? You remember way back in the Garden of Eden, remember the serpent came. And Satan casted doubt upon the truthfulness of what God had said. But that wasn't enough, and then he denied what God had said. You shall not surely die, as though he knew better. And then lastly, he distorts the truth. But you will be like God. And so he's very, very crafty in the way that he comes. And those who teach error seek to lead God's people astray. And the underlying obvious purpose is that they are satanic. It's just like the deception in the Garden of Eden. Paul warns in his first letter, chapter 4, verse 1, but the Spirit explicitly says that in the latter times, some will fall away from the faith. What? Paying attention to deceitful spirits, and what? The doctrines of demons. by means of hypocrisy, of liars, seared in their conscience as one with a branding iron. But notice what he says, what's happening in the last days that some will give their attention to, okay? And in this era, it's all about getting eyeballs on ads and internet or whatever and Facebook, you know, the little ads on the side or to keep you on faith, you know, to keep someone's attention. Amusement is actually the opposite. It's not really being engaged, but here, what are they doing? They're paying attention to what? Deceitful spirits. And he goes on to say the doctrines of demons. Our Bibles are replete with examples of our heroes of the faith and how they stood their ground in the face of great opposition. Think of Moses, how he stood his ground. Oh, he was a flawed man, of course, but when he came down off that mountain and they had made that golden nap, golden calf, and how he reacted to that. Think of Joshua. As for me, in my house, we will serve the Lord and going in and wiping out the Canaanites in the promised land. Elijah, standing up before those prophets of Baal. These are men who are resolute, who knew the truth, that were moved to stand up and to defend the truth. In fact, all the prophets of the Old Testament, this common theme, repent of your idolatry, Israel, and come back unto God who is compassionate and will forgive you. And you see that cycle again and again and again. The people repent. They come back, you know, dust and sackcloth and ashes. And what do they do? In the book of Judges, it's fascinating. It says they put their idols away. Like, I'll put it in the closet. And what does it say? Then they pulled their idols back out. And so this cycle goes on and on. Remember Paul in Acts 17 after going to Thessalonica, planting the church there, being there for only a few weeks and being chased out. Where does he go next? Berea. And it says in 1711 about the Bereans, now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica. And he gives two reasons. One, they received the word with great eagerness. They were hungry. They had a hunger and anticipation of the word. Secondly, examining the scriptures daily to see whether these things be so. So they're not, the Bereans weren't those just whatever comes down the pike, we'll just kind of believe it. No, they received the true word with eagerness, right? And then they examined these things to see if they'd be so. I encourage all of you, be Bereans, and many of you are. I love to engage with some of you. You know, finer questions, what about this, and that kind of thing. I love to do that. That shows me that you're a Berean, that you're looking into the Word. Well, the end of verse 1. says, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. So the reason for this warning is simply that. There are many false prophets that have gone out into the world that deny biblical teaching and make up destructive doctrines. They're very subtle, sabotaging the truth of God, like mixing it with air. For example, an ice cold cup of orange juice, as beautiful as it would appear at a breakfast table, with just one drop of cyanide in it, it's mostly, it's 99.9% orange juice, right? But that 0.1% of poison will kill you. And so too with false doctrine. You might have most of the things lined up rightly, believe in election, and the doctrines of grace, but if you get who Jesus Christ is, for example, wrong, or the role of the Holy Spirit, or something like that, it is destructive. And there was a proliferation in the first century of personal dream revelations, and oracles, and magic arts, and astrology. Peter also warns, and I hope you're thinking of how often the New Testament talks about this, but 2 Peter 2.1, but false prophets also arose among the people. This is Peter writing, so this is already happening. just as there will be false teachers among you who secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, and bring swift destruction upon themselves. Isn't that striking? Destructive heresies. And even to the extent that they deny the master who bought them, that they deny the efficaciousness of Christ's work on the cross. And oftentimes this is that, well, it's human effort that saves us. His work's not enough. So they deny the master who bought them. Strong language throughout the New Testament. I saw, I think it was John MacArthur speaking at the MDiv student, not the MDiv students, the PhD students, doctor of ministry students, but anyway, there was a little clip and he was talking about the juvenilization of the church in our day. And what used to take place, we don't believe in children's church, but many churches would, after the singing, they'd send the young kids off to the other room and they'd play some games and, you know, kind of, you know, maybe a little quick Bible story, but play a bunch of games and that kind of thing. And he was making the point that this is now coming to the main auditorium. That a lot of what is called worship is really a lot of that kind of stuff. And if you think of I mean, Stephen Furtick, for example, you know, squirt guns and playing around and that kind of stuff and just not even exegeting the Scriptures and just saying what's on his mind. And oftentimes, God told me. God just told me this and this kind of thing. That is destructive. And the people that sit there and applaud and think, this is really coming from God. Isn't he funny? You know, and that kind of thing. It's dangerous. The whole prosperity movement is filled with errors. I mean, how do we know? Well, we can look at the Scriptures. There's no expositional preaching through the Word of God. Therefore, there's no true gospel and a balance of the law that we're responsible before God, but the goodness of the gospel. And so having that balance, the free offer of Christ, that's not there. Oftentimes, there's no church membership, which means there's no church discipline. So kind of anything goes. And this movement goes all the way back to the time of Jeremiah and probably before. Jeremiah 6 verse 13. for the least of them, even to the greatest of them. Everyone is greedy for gain, from the prophet even to the priest. Everyone deals falsely. They have healed the brokenness of my people superficially, saying, peace, peace, but there will be no peace. Were they ashamed of the abomination they have done? They were not even ashamed at all. Did they not even know how to blush? Therefore, they shall fall among those who fall at the time I shall punish them. They shall be cast down, says the Lord. Now these are the ones that are flying around in jets and asking for 70 million dollars for a new jet and these kinds of things that appear everything's going fine. But the Lord ultimately says at the end they will be cast down and they're not even ashamed of what they're doing. You consider those verses in light of such names as Benny Hinn and Creflo Dollar and Joyce Meyer and Kenneth Copeland and Morris Cirillo even here just a few miles from here. So, brethren, a call to biblical discernment. Secondly, a call to declare Jesus has come in the flesh. In verses 2 and 3, the spirits that come, that is the teachers, are to be tested on, mark it well, their Christological confession. What do they believe about Christ? And this is the theological test that he gives, and later in the next section, it's more of an ethical test. For the Gnostics would deny the divine Lord actually came in the flesh. Or some would say, yes, they believe in the humanity of God, but at his baptism, the Spirit came upon him with the dove, but then in the Garden of Gethsemane, before Christ went to the cross, the Spirit left him, and so he was no longer God. So in other words, during his three and a half years of ministry, he was the God-man, but that he wasn't that when he suffered and before that. That does not agree with Scripture. And brothers and sisters, I have to tell you that what you believe about Jesus Christ will determine your eternal destiny, right? And that's why it's so important in our evangelism to preach Christ rightly, who he is, what he's accomplished, his person, his work, wedded together as our great mediator. Christological heresy has deadly implications. If he was not truly man, then he can't be our example. If he was not truly man, then he can't be our substitute. He had to really become a man to die in our place, right? And if he is not truly God, he cannot pay the infinite price for our guilt. Listen to the Princeton theologian, Benjamin Warfield. He says this, the glory of the incarnation is that it presents to our adoring gaze, not a humanized God or a deified man, but the God-man. and who is all that God is and at the same time all that man is, the one whose almighty arm we can rest and whose human sympathy we can appeal. Now that's, I could preach a whole sermon just on that phrase, pulling from Hebrews chapter four, Christ is our great high priest, and because he was actually human, he can sympathize with us, but also we can appeal to him because he is one that is all powerful, he is all God, and so we can rest on his almighty arm. We have two baptisms today. What a glorious thing that is. We love that. The litmus test of the authentic profession of faith is if the person understands who Christ is and what He has come to do. And I'm happy to say that we've had three interviews and that they passed the test and we're excited to present them to the church and to witness their professions of faith as they're added to the membership of this church. Well, verse three, human teachers that deny Christ are really of Antichrist, and that's pretty clear. Every spirit, verse three, that does not confess Jesus is not from God. And this is the spirit of Antichrist of which you have heard that it is coming and now is already in the world. We've already talked about Deuteronomy 13, a prophet who predicts the future, performs certain signs, that if they don't agree with God, they're not to be followed. The content of their message reveals that they're not from God. And in fact, John states that they are of the spirit of Antichrist. So he really brings in a sort of an eschatological type of thing, an end times thing, because we know from Paul's writing Antichrist is coming, the Antichrist. And what John is saying is that these lesser Antichrists, anyone who's against Christ is an Antichrist to some degree or another. The aim of Antichrist is what? to dethrone God, to pull him off of his throne, as it were, and to exalt himself. He deceives people into denying the truth about who Jesus Christ is. And in the context of John, it's denying both the full humanity and the full deity of Christ. Satan has many counterfeits, and he always has. Remember when Moses was performing the wonders before Pharaoh? Let my people go, and he would throw the staff down and become a snake, and then it would become a staff again. What did the magicians do? They copied the same thing, and several other type of things. It says in Exodus 7, but the magicians of Egypt did the same with their secret arts, and Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he did not listen to them as the Lord had said. In Acts 8, you have the example of Simon, the one that was performing magic. He makes a profession of faith. The apostles even baptize him. And then, of course, he's saying, give me this power. And it became evident that he wasn't genuinely saved. So, that's our first two points. Let's now move to verses six to eight, I'm sorry, four to six. The call to guard what you listen to. And just taking these verses, it's verse five, don't listen to heresy, but only listen to what is agrees with apostolic truth, which is verse six. But first, in verse 4, he gives some encouragement here. And notice, first of all, the three pronouns that begin with each of these three verses. You, I emphasize it in my reading, they, and then we, where John includes himself. But first of all, verse 4, he says, you are from God, little children, and have overcome them. Little children, another term of endearment that he uses often here. And you have overcome what? The false teaching. You've rejected it. You've stood strong. And so he encourages them that you are bearing evidence that you indeed have overcome them. The word for overcome is where we get the word Nike, the swoosh, you know, of which you probably have some Nike clothing somewhere or another. The word means in the BDAGS lexicon, to win in the face of obstacles, to be a victor, to conquer, to overcome, to prevail. And of course you can see why they would choose such a name, very insightful. And when he says here that you have overcome, it's in the perfect tense. You have overcome them. You are settled. Your salvation is secure. You will remain having overcome them. You don't overcome them today, and then you're not overcome them tomorrow. You're not gullible tomorrow and then back into the truth. No, you have overcome them. You've made a decisive break from heresy. You've embraced the truth, and God will keep you. That's the reason for, and that's exactly what he says, because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. So the reason he gives that you have overcome them, you will remain having overcome them, is because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. Jesus says in John 16.33, but take courage, I have overcome the world. So how do we persevere? It is only by the perseverance of the saints. Greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. And I have to tell you, I am so glad that despite my failings, my stumblings, my lack of honoring God as I ought, And you too, your sins, your sins of omission, neglecting the Word of God, neglecting prayer, or being unkind, and these kinds of things. And we think, how am I overcoming, Lord? I'm so weak. But yet, we're told here, greater is He that is in you than he who is in the world. That is encouraging. Chapter 3 and verse 20, similar phrase. And whatever our heart condemns us, for God is greater than our hearts and knows all things. And that's the idea of conscience, right? We talked about some weeks back that whatever our conscience condemns us, if it's unjustly condemning us, God is greater than our conscience, and He actually knows all things anyway. It's like whatever your conscience is falsely trying to accuse you of is like one bucket of sin, but you're blind to the other 20,000 buckets of sin of which God sees, and so we're told even in this passage, and God knows all things. In John chapter 10, similar to chapter 8 of John that we have in our New Testament reading, says this, a stranger they simply will not follow on Christ the Good Shepherd. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him because they do not know the voice of strangers. And true sheep, true Christians, will not follow a stranger who's spouting out strange doctrine. Secondly, they don't recognize the stranger's voice. There's something squeaky about this. It's like some LP going backwards that sounds demonic or something. There's something that's not right. And then lastly, therefore they will flee because it's a stranger. There's a lot packed in this verse. Christ is a good shepherd. My sheep hear my voice, Jesus says. A stranger, though, they simply will not follow and they will flee because they do not recognize the voice of strangers. So, ultimately, we overcome from our trust in God, God sustaining us, a reliance in being educated by the Word of God, and having the Holy Spirit deposited within us. Secondly, under this last point, verse 5, they are from the world. Therefore, they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. Think of these false teachers. Do they have any problem gathering crowds? Most of them? No, not really. Typically not. Of course, you know, they're about the, what, itching of the ears, you know, kind of itch the ear and do provide the right kind of entertainment. I mean, anyone can, I mean, we could double the size of this in six months if we decided to not be biblical and just bring in all kinds of stuff into the worship service. We're not going to do it. But they don't have any problem getting hearers because the world loves to hear worldly teachers. Goats love to hear goats talk about goat things. And that's essentially what they're doing. And so we ask, are they worldly? Well, remember back in chapter 2 and verse 16, for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life is not from the Father, but from the world. You put your various, whatever, these teachers, if you're trying to test them, through that grid. Well, they have the lust of the eyes, boastful pride of life, the lust of the flesh, and these kinds of things. Is their goal to scratch itchy ears and to gain a crowd? And see, we must be discriminating when we're trying to evaluate something. And sometimes this comes, most of us are pretty settled and have discernment, but you know, it's when that family member, one brother's brother, family member suddenly is responding to the witnessing of a brother in this church a few years back and starts going to one of these mega churches and trying to discern like is this even is there enough truth there or where's it at and is he genuinely saying we have to be discriminating with those things just like a pilot you know we were downtown last night we saw some of the planes coming in and you know if you've flown into San Diego they're only about what appears to be 40 feet from the buildings right before hitting the runway If a pilot is not discriminating and assessing the height and the approach, right, it could be destructive. Likewise, the engineers for the Coronado Bay Bridge, if they determined that they made it for a certain amount of vehicle weight, but they didn't take into consideration that there would be more vehicles over the course of years, it would be a calamity. And so these have to be discriminating. And so, too, we must be discriminating. That's what John is getting. to, for us. Test the truth. And testing the truth and speaking the truth and challenging things in a kind, biblical way is not always popular. I mean, Elijah didn't have a big fan crowd when he was with the 400 prophets of Baal, but he knew that he had God as an audience. 2nd Timothy 3, Paul says, It goes on to say that they will not make further progress, but their folly will be obvious to all. And that's what happens so often with false teachers. Eventually, the gag is up, right? The veil is taken down and you see them. for what they really are. I can't believe it's been 20 years, but there was a cult here in San Diego that was very well known. It was called the Heaven's Gate cult. Some of us remember that. Reverend Applewhite used to be a Presbyterian minister. That's the leader of this cult. See what I'm saying, how these things come? And let me just tell you just a little bit briefly about this, because you can see how blinded people can be. It was a UFO religious cult. If you remember the story behind it, it was the, what was it, Hale-Bopp comet. And they believed that if they committed suicide, that when the Hale-Bopp comet came later that night, that there would be a UFO to pick them up and to take them to follow the comet. So 39 people, mass suicide under the leadership of Reverend Applewhite. commit suicide in North San Diego County in Rancho Santa Fe in a huge luxury home. Of course they're all wearing, ironically, Nike shoes and white clothing and they're laying all in these beds. And I've actually been inside of that house. a couple years after that, and most of the weird stuff that was there is still there. Not the bodies, of course. But you can see, I mean, how gullible are you going to be to buy in that we're going to get on a UFO spaceship that's going behind a Hale-Bopp comet that comes however many years it is? I mean, that is how deceptive and how destructive these cults are. But even though that sounds extreme, modern day cults like the Jehovah's Witnesses, which is a growing, quote, religion, Mormonism, Christian science, the list goes on. And there's so many that lack discernment and they're deceived and they're gullible and they begin to believe. what these people tell them. Now I don't know if every single person that's, I think there's some that are genuinely believe that they're doing the right thing as they're knocking on doors and there's probably a large amount that know that it's not true. Well, verse 6, We are from God, and he who knows God listens to us, and he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. We is in sharp contrast to the they, the world, that has the worldly hearers. We, and John includes himself, and there's only a few times where he uses the first person plural. He begins the letter that way. What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at, what we have touched with our hands concerning the word of life, what we have seen and heard, we proclaim to you. And so he's talking about apostolic witness there. There's some that say that we means the writers of the New Testament. It probably includes that and those who faithfully teach what the Bible has to say. John 8 and verse 47, the very end of that text that Steve read earlier, it says, for who is of God, remember he's talking to the Pharisees, for who is of God hears the words of God. For this reason you do not hear them because you are not of God. Now that's incredible that Jesus would tell the religious leaders of the day you are not of God. Charles Spurgeon says, flowers are well enough, but hungry souls prefer bread. To allegorize with origin may make some men stare at you, but your work is to fill the mouths of men with truth and not to open them with wonder. And that's why, in biblical teaching, we stick to the Bible. Not man's opinions, not stories, and all of this good stuff. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of God stands forever. Peter says, so we have the prophetic Word made more sure to which you do well to pay attention as a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star arises. So we must discriminate between what is false, what is true. We have these tests, the Christological tests that he gives. What do they believe about Jesus Christ? The ethical tests, are they of the world? So a couple concluding applications as we end. we must use biblical discernment in evaluating the voices that come over the airways, over the internet, over the TV, cable channels. How many of those channels are there now? I can't even keep up. There must be at least 10, not that I try to keep up. Every now and once in a blue moon, I'll flip through it just to see what people are actually watching and listening to. tempted to go and vomit afterwards but I mean you know it's just it's just everywhere so you've got to discern what you listen to what are you listening to if you hear his voice through the Word of God, by the Spirit of God, and you have understanding, give Him adoration and praise, because He's renewed you. You who were once a corpse dead in your trespasses and sins have been made alive with Christ, and that's good news, and it should lead to adoration and praise. Paul tells the Ephesians in chapter 4, we are no longer to be children, tossed to and fro and carried away by every wind of doctrine and the trickery of men by craftiness and deceitful scheming. Isn't it amazing how many even so-called Protestant churches, we don't know their heart, but they go from one thing to the next. It's the left behind. It's the Jesus calling. It's the prayer of Jabez. And they get all buzzed up and all of that kind of stuff. Rather than sticking to the plain and simple revealed things of the Word of God, they're tossed back and forth. Beware of false teachers and be willing to expose them. It's interesting to me, and we don't have time to turn to it, but in Acts 20, the Apostle Paul, we know, spent three years in Ephesus teaching and exhorting house to house. And what does he say? It's very interesting that he sums up his three-year ministry to the Ephesians as one of warning. And he warns that savage wolves will come. And to be ready for them. predominance of false teachers has not diminished even since the Apostle Paul. We studied the book of Jude recently and he says at the beginning, while I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation, Jude wanted to just write about the glories of our salvation. He says this, but I felt it necessary to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once and for all handed down to the saints. We too must contend earnestly. And that begins with just examining yourself, making sure that you're right, being a student of this word, being a biblical churchman, because none of us can do it alone. We need each other in the context of the local church. And if you're here today and you're outside of Christ, what's your assessment of Jesus? Moral teacher? Good man? probably never committed, broke any of the Ten Commandments, maybe in your mind, or is he the one and only Son of God, the only one that could be the Savior of the world and dying for sinners? Embrace him as a Savior, but repent of your sin and believe in and on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. You will be judged about your response and your assessment of who Christ is. So confess Jesus in the flesh today. Let's pray. Oh Father, how we thank you for your word and the clarity of it. Lord, help us to be those that are not gullible, that we don't believe these other spirits that are coming down, that are departing from the Word of God. Lord, we pray that You would give us biblical discernment, that we could test the spirits to see if they be from You. And Lord, I thank You for this clear test of one that confesses that Jesus Christ has actually come in the flesh, that we believe in the Incarnation, something that we emphasize every year around Christmastime. It seems like The church does, but that's something that should be emphasized all year round, for it is altogether vital. We thank you that you went to such depths as to die for unworthy sinners. Even in the Garden of Gethsemane, as you took the inner three and asked them to pray, and when a stone strove further and fell to your knees praying, O Jesus, we're told in the Gospel of Luke, that you sweat, as it were, drops of blood, the agony of knowing the soon experience of all of God's wrath that we deserved, but that he took upon himself. Hallelujah, what a Savior. Hallelujah, what a Savior. So Lord, we pray that you would grow us and mature us and make us useful for the days that you give us breath and life. In Jesus' name, amen. I ask the musicians to come forward and we'll sing a response.